


Coming Back As We Are

by Lecavayay



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Canon Compliant, Gen, Happy Ending But It Takes Some Work, Tampa Bay Lightning, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 05:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lecavayay/pseuds/Lecavayay
Summary: Tampa calls his name nineteenth overall and the roots of his future start to unfurl, twining deep into the fabric of the jersey he puts on.





	Coming Back As We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/gifts).



> Dearest blueorangecrush, I was so excited to write these two and I hope I've hit on some of the things you like :) 
> 
> As a side note: this is the most hockey-accurate fic I've ever written. If anyone finds a timeline error, you are better than me in every way.

Andrei doesn’t really expect to go in the first round. He’s not a Sentinel, after all. Teams like their goalies to be Sentinels. Or normal. Andrei isn’t either one of those things.

He’s there anyway, in a suit and tie that feels constricting. He’s there with all of the other Canadians and Americans and Europeans buzzing with energy and nerves. He recognizes a few players, Yakupov and Galchenyuk, and doesn’t miss the fingers Nail has slipped under the cuff of Alex’s jacket.

Most GMs don’t like their goalies to be Guides, but skaters…there sometimes aren’t enough skater Guides to go around.

Edmonton is unbalanced, a glutton of Sentinel talent gnawing itself to shreds. Nail’s going to help with that, Andrei thinks. He’s the highest ranked Guide in the draft since Steven Stamkos. A flashy commodity among the stay-at-home defensemen and two-way forwards of the later rounds. Solid, reliable, their orientation bleeding into their hockey.

Andrei’s flashy. Good enough to make people watch him, to sit in the stands just to see him play. He could go in the first round, but he doesn’t expect it.

 

Tampa calls his name nineteenth overall and the roots of his future start to unfurl, twining deep into the fabric of the jersey he puts on.

//

Ben gets traded on a Wednesday. He’s on a plane Thursday morning and on the ice Thursday night in Senators red playing behind Lightning blue. The white away jersey smells weird and he keeps picking up on the newness of it, the harsh scent of something that’s barely been touched. At least the number on the back of it is the same. The stitching feels familiar as he runs his fingers over the logo during intermission.

He misses Jared’s voice filling up the silent spaces in his head, grounding him.

One of the guys is talking somewhere to his right with a tone that sits above the hum of the locker room and he latches on. He laughs and Ben blinks, dropping his hands to his lap where he can’t feel the stitching anymore.

It’ll do.

 

Forty-five shots is a hell of a lot of shots.

Ben feels electric as he strips out of his gear knowing he saved every single one. He can still feel the weight and snap of the pucks in his glove, against his blocker, his pads. It’s only one game, his _first_ game, but it’s an achievement. It’s a start. The best impression he could hope to make with the circumstances the way they are.

A gentle hand falls to his shoulder and he feels it like a soft blanket, turning to face the person it belongs to.

“Thanks for bailing us out back there,” Stamkos says, wide smile and sweaty hair sticking up in spikes.

“Y-yeah, sure,” Ben stutters. “Anytime.”

The safe, settled feeling leaves with Stamkos but a few of Ben’s frayed edges stay tucked away.

//

English is difficult and Tampa is hot.

Andrei knew it would be and still, it’s unexpected.

The locker room is overcrowded with prospects and veterans fresh off a long summer of training. There’s barely any room to breathe when he walks in, heavy gear bag slung over his shoulder. He spots the other goalies easily, though, crossing the room as efficiently as he can to settle in the space left for him.

There are too many people and he is _sweating_ just from walking, god it’s all miserable. He digs a water bottle out and takes a few good gulps, silently cursing that it’s already lukewarm.

“Nervous?”

Andrei looks to the older man who sits to his left and immediately feels more at ease. “Not nervous, just hot,” he replies comfortably in Russian.

Nabokov laughs at him.

More people gather the longer Andrei sips on his water, everyone in regulation grey shirts and a mix of properly branded hats. He tests himself on names: Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, Ondrej Palat, Nikita, Vladislav…

“Hey, I’m Ben.”

Andrei caps his water, tosses the empty bottle back in his bag. “Andrei,” he replies, reaching for the hand the Lightning’s starting goaltender extends.

There’s nothing special about the handshake, practically unremarkable, but Ben Bishop visibly softens when their palms touch. Not all goalies are Sentinels, but Andrei knows Ben is.

He takes his hand back. “It’s good to meet you.” He’d practiced that line exactly for today, testing the vowels and consonants over and over in his mouth until they sounded right.

“Yeah. Yes, it’s good.” Ben runs fingers through his hair and Andrei wonders if he can feel every strand brush against his skin. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

//

Ben has always hated the way the weight room smells, like chalk and fraying rubber and ten thousand sweaty hands have touched everything. He can feel himself spreading out and clinging on to every unpleasant thing surrounding him. He tries not to focus too hard on the way the weight clip sounds when he squeezes it to take off a plate, but he’s slipping.

He digs his blunt fingernails into the meat of this palms before taking the plates off the bar to put them away. He bites at his bottom lip when he carries them to the rack, winces at how loud the drag of them rubbing against each other is in the quiet room.

There’s sweat pooling on his upper lip and he parses out the individual droplets.

He needs to stretch.

The mat he sits on is old and he hates the way it feels against his hands as he gets situated but he folds himself over one leg and then the other, hearing the stretch of his muscles under his skin. He flexes his foot and the sound changes.

There’s a clock somewhere, one that still ticks. He counts the seconds.

 

He doesn’t remember what number he’s on when something finally cuts through the haze. All of his senses dull instantly. Muted. Neutral. He inhales like he hasn’t taken a breath in hours.

Ben looks at the hand, curved gently over his right knee, and then to the person the hand belongs to.

“Hi,” Andrei says.

“Hey,” he exhales.

“Is okay?”

Ben wants to put his hand over Andrei’s, keep him there for just a little longer in case his episode isn’t over. “I’m okay.”

Andrei hums but doesn’t move to get up from where he’s kneeled beside him.

He wonders if Andrei knows what he does to Ben, how easy it is for him to sink into Andrei’s comfortable nothingness with just a handshake. He hopes it didn’t take too long to pull him to the surface. 

//

Andrei watches Ben.

He watches him in the net and on the bench, in the locker room, when they’re supposed to be going over video, especially in the weight room. He tries to tell himself he’s looking for tips and pointers, looking to take in as much as he can in the time he has left here before being sent down. But it’s more than that.

He watches for the little things. Nails biting into skin or fingertips tracing the stitches on the front of his jersey, the way he sometimes leans toward Stamkos when he speaks.

When he’s alone in the hotel room that is acting as home, Andrei lets himself remember the way a single touch brought Ben back. He’d never been able to do that before.

Some Guide and Sentinel matches will be better than others, that’s just common knowledge, but Andrei never considered _better_ to be that good.

He thinks maybe he could ask Ben about it in the morning. 

 

The list of players assigned to Syracuse is posted in the locker room when Andrei arrives and he easily sees his name, second from the bottom.

“You’ll be back soon,” Ben says from behind him, scanning the list over his head as if his name might be somewhere on it, too.

Andrei nods and smiles. He’s too shy to try and say something with disappointment welling up in his throat. He knew he was getting sent down, that he wasn’t ready yet, but it never feels good. _As fast as I can_ , he thinks as he stupidly reaches out to touch Ben’s elbow, cradle the curve of it in his palm.

Ben exhales, slowly blinks.

“Be good,” Andrei says, walking away to collect his things before either of them can say anything else.

It will all just have to wait. 

//

“How’re you feeling?” Stammer asks, helping Ben into his hotel room in Pittsburgh and settling him on the end of the bed.

“As good as expected.” He can almost taste the pain when the muscles of his groin flex. “Injuries are hard.”

“Yeah, of course. Can I…can I get you something?”

Ben reaches for Stammer’s hand, trying desperately not the fall into the rhythm of his own heartbeat pulsing in his thigh. “Just sit with me for a minute.”

Stammer does and the weight of his hand in Ben’s is enough to almost clear his head. He’s a good Guide and Ben knows he’s taken classes over the summer in hopes of broadening his abilities for teammates that don’t have anyone else. Teammates like Ben.

It’s almost enough.

“D’you know who they’re gonna call up?”

“Huh?” Stammer asks, not following Ben’s train of thought.

“As a backup, do you know who they’re thinking of calling up from Syracuse?”

“I, uh, I didn’t hear anybody talk about it.”

Ben closes his eyes, leans his head back.

“Do you…have a preference?” Stammer asks, carefully.

Ben could say Andrei and then Stammer would know, he’d connect the dots. And maybe that would be fine. Everyone knows Andrei’s a Guide, he’s not hiding it, but they haven’t talked about anything else. About the way it feels when Andrei touches him, how easy it is for him to wipe his mind clean. How Ben’s never felt anything like it before.

“No,” he says. “Just wondering.”

“I’m sure we’ll know in the morning.”

“You’re right.”

They sit in the quiet hotel room and listen to the commotion of the road outside the window. Stammer’s hand gets sweaty after a little while and Ben hikes up the leg of his shorts so he can get Stammer’s knee against his, any skin-to-skin contact will do.

“Did you bring a white noise machine?” he asks, eventually. “I can set it up and you can try to get some sleep.”

Ben nods and waves toward his bag. “Toss me that shirt on top, would you?”

Stammer hands it to him instead and makes his way to the nightstand, struggling to plug the little machine in. “Will you call me if you need anything? Please?”

The first wave of nonsense from the machine is nice, making the sounds of his body almost imperceptible. “Yeah.”

He hopes he won’t need to.

//

Andrei is half-awake when the sun starts to rise. He’d tossed and turned all night thinking about the news coming out of Pittsburgh.

The call comes just before six, shrill and unexpected.

He packs his bag and orders a car. His flight leaves at eight-thirty.

 

The team doesn’t have a morning skate so Andrei finds some of them wondering around the hotel lobby in their game day suits. He has his own folded neatly in his bag, waiting.

He spent the whole flight debating whether to tell his mom he was going to be in the NHL tonight, even if it was just on the bench. There’s always a chance he’d have to go in and he would never hear the end of it if she didn’t know.

His heart flutters at the thought.

The elevators ding behind him and he turns to get out of the way, coming face-to-face with Ben as the doors open. He’s in a slim blue suit and brown shoes. Andrei should say something but all of the words he knows in English seem to have vanished.

“You’re here,” Ben says, stepping up into his space.

“Yes.”

“I’m so glad it’s you.”

Andrei drops his bag so he can reach for Ben’s hand, wrapping his fingers around his palm. Ben doesn’t visibly relax this time, but he does smile.

Andrei smiles back.

“Vasy!” Coach Cooper calls, rushing their way. “I’m glad you’re here!”

Ben wiggles his hand free of Andrei’s fingers before Cooper gets any closer. Andrei squints at him, scrunching up his face in confusion.

“I’d like to give you the start tonight,” Cooper says. “I hope you’re ready to play.”

Andrei’s entire body bursts into flames, confused as to whether it should be feeling excited or terrified and instead just burning itself up. “Y-yes, of course!”

“Bus leaves in twenty, better get your bag loaded.”

Andrei thinks he should also definitely text his mom.

 

The Wells Fargo Center is completely foreign to Andrei and he’s thankful he can just follow the crowd of his team to the visitor’s locker room without having to navigate himself. Ben gets there last, his gait slowed with the injury.

“Before you get into pregame,” he says, settling to Andrei’s right. “I’d like to try something.”

“Before?”

“Yeah, after team meeting.”

“Okay,” Andrei agrees, loosening the knot of his tie.

Team meeting isn’t much more than a run down of the game day schedule, where and when they needed to be certain places. The group splinters off in different directions when Cooper dismisses them – some stripping out of their suits to take showers, some getting into workout gear, some doing nothing but pulling their phones out to waste some time.

Ben nudges Andrei. “C’mon.”

He follows Ben out of the room and down the tunnel, stopping at the edge of the ice. He doesn’t think Ben should be on the ice, even if he’s not wearing skates.

But he gives in and shuffles to the center logo where Ben is waiting. “What is this?” he asks, pointed.

“There’s a test for Guides and Sentinels,” Ben explains. “A common one that can give us an idea of the strength of the match.”

Andrei tilts his head, considering.

“I’m going to stand in one crease and you’re going to whisper my name. Each time I can still hear you, you’ll take a few steps back and whisper my name again. All the way until I can’t hear you anymore.”

Andrei thinks he understands the plan and shuffles to the far crease with Ben, stopping a few steps from the blue paint. “Just a name?”

“Yeah.”

Andrei licks his lips and whispers, “Ben.”

Ben nods and Andrei steps back.

“Ben.”

A nod and a few more steps.

“Ben.”

Nod.

“Ben.”

Nod.

Andrei hits the first blue line. “Ben.”

Ben waives him further away.

“Ben.”

Again.

“Ben.”

Andrei gets to the red line “Ben.”

A few more steps.

“Ben.”

More.

“Ben.”

Further.

“Ben.”

The second blue line comes and goes.

“Ben.”

He’s waved on, swallowing the racing of his heart.

“Ben.”

He’s nearly at the top of the far crease, still whispering. And Ben still raises his hand. Andrei moves until his back is pressed to the glass, fingers gripping the edge of the boards.

“Venya.”

He sees Ben tilt his head before a smile erupts, brighter than the lights reflecting off the ice. “Is that my name in Russian?” he asks, shouting a bit to be heard.

Andrei thinks the name sounds good on his tongue. “It can be,” he says, still quiet.

Ben shuffles toward him, crossing the red line before he replies back. “I like it.”

“Me too.”

Ben stops with his toes just barely over the goal line. “Is this okay?”

Andrei squeezes the edge of the boards and nods.

“I wasn’t sure, when I met you, if this was as good as it seemed. But now I think…I think it’s better than that.”

Andrei’s never met a Sentinel like Ben. “I think it’s best.”

“You’re gonna play great tonight.”

Andrei looks down at the ice to try and hide the curve of his lips. “I will try.”

 

A 3-1 win is pretty good, by most standards.

//

Andrei meets them in St. Louis a few months later, barely more than 24 hours after Yzerman announces Nabby would be placed on waivers. Ben hears the shift of his shoulders under his suit before knuckles hit his hotel room door.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” Andrei says.

Ben lets him in, kicking his clothes into some kind of pile on the way back to the bed. “You’re here.”

“Again,” he agrees with a smile.

“For the season?”

“Maybe,” Andrei says, sitting down on the bed next to Ben. “If I play good.”

Ben feels the hairs on his arm reach for him, exhales when Andrei leans in so their skin brushes. “You will.”

Andrei wraps his fingers around Ben’s wrist and brings it to his lap, lays his head on Ben’s shoulder so he can hear the deep, even breaths he takes. It’s like clearing the cobwebs from the deepest, darkest corners of Ben’s mind. Places he didn’t even know existed free of dust and dirt.

“I played for you,” Andrei whispers. “In Syracuse. I worried you needed me.”

Ben exhales. “I did.”

Andrei traces figure-eights around Ben’s knuckles with a fingertip and Ben sinks easily into the smooth pattern. He listens for the brush of Andrei’s skin against his and settles further when he hears nothing at all.

//

Andrei listens to Ben do press after Game 6 and despite not being a Sentinel, he can almost taste the disappointment in his voice. He imagines a cloud of it in the locker room, covering every empty space.

They were one game away and blew it.

It wasn’t enough.

Lundqvist was exceptional.

We have to be better in our own zone.

The Stanley Cup is on the line.

Games like that just can’t happen.

Andrei watches Ben trace the stitching of his jersey when the microphones leave, sees the curve of his shoulders inward. “Venya, come on. Get dressed.”

His words snap Ben from whatever he was sinking in to and they head to the showers to wash off the game like everyone else. Andrei whispers the words of Russian nursery rhymes to keep Ben from trying to count the drops of water hitting his skin.

“Come home with me,” Ben pleads as they get dressed in bits and pieces of suits. “Please.”

 

Ben’s house is familiar this late into the season and Andrei tells him to get into bed while he gets a glass of water and a Gatorade from the fridge.

“I’m here,” he says, setting everything on the nightstand closest to Ben. “Lay down.”

Ben turns down the covers and wiggles underneath, leaving plenty of room for Andrei to do the same on the other side. “Everything is so much,” Ben whispers, voice watery even to Andrei’s average ears.

“Listen to me,” he says, stripping out of his shirt and getting under the sheets. “I’m here.”

Ben’s eyes close at Andrei’s first touch, fingers dragging over the cap of Ben’s shoulder to his elbow.

“I’m here, Venya.” He takes Ben’s hand in his and holds it close to his chest.

“I can feel your heartbeat.”

He flattens Ben’s palm to his skin. “Is it steady?”

“It’s yours.”

Andrei licks his lips, tongue catching on some of the chapped parts. “And what does that mean?”

Ben blinks his eyes open. “It’s always steady.”

Something in Andrei’s chest flutters and he smiles. “Not always, it seems.”

Ben slides his hand over Andrei’s collarbone to the side of his neck, thumb tilting his chin up until they’re eye to eye. “What do you think would happen if I kissed you?”

Andrei’s breath stutters. “Have you thought about it before?”

“Once,” Ben confesses. “After you shutout the Sabres. I’ve never seen you smile like that.” He brushes his thumb just under Andrei’s bottom lip. “I wondered if I could taste your happiness.”

“But I’m not happy now.”

“Maybe Thursday, then.”

“Maybe Thursday,” Andrei agrees, brushing his lips across Ben’s thumb just before he pulls it away. “Should sleep now.”

Ben settles his hand back against Andrei’s chest and closes his eyes. It isn’t long until his breathing settles and Andrei lets himself follow Ben off to sleep.

//

They win.

The final buzzer sounds and they…they’ve _won._

The team crowds him, yelling and smiling and jumping into a pile. They end up all pressed against the boards behind the net and Ben hears Stammer shout something. He can smell their sweat and someone’s blood, heartbeats pounding under skin, the metal taste of skates cutting ice…

“Venya!” Andrei’s there, shoving his way through the pack with his happiness.

The first touch is cool fingers around the back of his neck, the weight of Andrei against his chest, arm wrapped around his shoulders and Ben breathes. Everything quiet for the blink of an eye.

“You did it!” Andrei yells into his face and the joy comes rushing back, nearly knocking him off his skates.

“Stay with me.”

Andrei nods, fingers pressing against his neck and then gone. To be replaced with humming that settles above it all, even as they get separated. It’s Andrei’s favorite of the lullabies he sings. The one he says Ben responds to the most.

He listens most of the way through the handshake line, each Rangers’ palm a different scratch against his own. The sadness in their congratulations sits bitter in the back of his throat, too acrid to wash out with water. He tries anyway.

The locker room is covered in music, every stall drenched in it once they leave the ice. Ben likes their win playlist, likes to bask in it like it’s the sun. It’s predictable, one song leading into the next. Same order. Andrei’s stopped humming.

“Get showered, Mr. Game Seven,” Stammer says with a smile too bright to look at. “We’ve got celebrating to do on the plane!”

The room cries out in agreement and then Andrei’s there only half dressed, a towel around his neck and goalie pants hanging loose on his hips. The curve of his shoulders bringing Ben back from the edge of chaos.

“Okay?”

He is. They’re Eastern Conference Champions. He’s fine. He’s…they’re going to play for the Stanley Cup. “Amazing.”

“Then come, before Killer uses all the hottest water.”

Something in the way Andrei’s mouth sits reminds Ben of Tuesday night, face to face in his bed and fighting desperately for sleep. “You’re happy now.”

Andrei smiles. “So are you.”

“C-can I?” he stutters, suddenly nervous.

“Here? In front of everyone? Or in the _showers_? Too scandalous.”

“Anywhere.”

So Andrei makes him leave his bulky pads behind and takes him outside the visitors’ locker room and around a corner. “Then here,” he says, final.

And Ben’s spent a few too many moments alone imagining what Andrei would taste like, imagining how he would do it if he got the chance.

He settles Andrei’s back against the painted cinderblock wall and tilts his chin up, big hands cradling each side of his jaw. Ben feels wiped clean as he leans in, finally brushing his lips against Andrei’s.

For a moment he tastes like summer and Ben chases it too far, licking it from his mouth until there’s nothing but exhaustion and anxiety and the rough burn of chapped lips.

“Ah.”

Andrei drags fingertips across his mouth, blinks.

“Was that…”

“I don’t think, uh.”

“Fireworks?”

No. No, there weren’t any of those at all, so Ben shakes his head. “You see so many movies, y’know? And they always have…matches like us are supposed to have fireworks.”

Andrei blinks. “But it’s okay. You are still perfect.”

Ben feels his face heat and wants to laugh.

“Like that first time,” Andrei continues. “In the weight room. You bent over yourself all zoned out. You came to me with one touch. Just this.” He presses one fingertip to Ben’s forearm. “That was my firework.”

Ben still remembers the way the whole world calmed with Andrei kneeling next to him that day. “One touch?”

“The most amazing thing I ever see. _Better_ than any movie, right?”

Ben’s chest tightens, electricity shooting down his spine to make him fight a shiver. “Yeah.”

“Oh geez,” Boyler says, coming around the corner like a tornado. “I found them!” he shouts back down the hall. “Quit goalie bonding and come take pictures with us.”

Ben hides his laugh in Andrei’s hair once Boyler disappears back toward the visitor’s locker room. “I, uh, think I had fireworks, too.”

“Hmm?”

“When you said my name from the other end of the ice? It was like you were standing right next to me. Crystal clear.”

Andrei smiles. “See? Perfect match. All kinds of fireworks.”

“Perfect match.”

//

The summer is short and painful. Andrei hurts all the way to his core when he thinks of Ben after Game 6, zoned out in the locker room with dried tears on his cheeks.

“You’re thinking about it again.”

Andrei relaxes his forehead when Ben runs his thumb over the wrinkles. “It’s only been a month. Don’t you still think about it?”

Ben flops down on the towel next to him, their elbows brushing. “I was pretty zoned out after the second period.”

Andrei digs his fingers into the sand.

“I’m, uh, I wanted to ask. I’m gonna go back to St. Louis in a couple weeks to see my family? I haven’t booked my tickets yet cause I…I didn’t know if you wanted to go with me?”

It hasn’t even been a full season, a full _year_ , of them knowing about this thing together and Ben…he just, surprises Andrei all the time. “Yes.”

“I haven’t told anyone,” Ben says. “But I would like to tell them.”

Andrei rolls onto his side to he can put his chin on Ben’s shoulder. “Okay. You can’t keep me the whole summer, though. I need to go back to somewhere it’s not so hot.”

 

St. Louis is in the middle of a heat wave when they arrive and Andrei could melt right into the broken sidewalks outside of the airport. “I’m sweating,” he complains.

“I told you not to wear pants.”

They drag their baggage to the rental car desk and then to a boring silver compact car with a Missouri license plate. Andrei blasts the AC as soon as Ben turns the engine on.

“I got a text from my mom when we got off the plane,” Ben says. “She’s invited some cousins over for dinner on Saturday. Which is her code for every family member within a drivable distance will be at the house Saturday night.”

Andrei swallows, tilts the air vent his way. “How many is that?”

“Twenty-five.”

That’s a lot of people.

“There’s a big backyard, so it won’t be cramped but I just, I wanted you to know. They’ll ask about you.”

“And what will you say?”

Ben moves his hand to Andrei’s knee. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Something nice.”

Ben smiles. “The nicest.”

 

Andrei spends most of the first night awake, eyes tracing patterns in the bumpy ceiling of the guest room while Ben sleeps next to him. His parents are nice – a matched pair just like him and Ben. Andrei watched them as they ate dinner, cataloguing all of the brief, fleeting touches between them. A reflex at this point of their lives. So automatic he doesn’t think either of them know they’re doing it.

Andrei thinks about a house he and Ben could live in like this and it seems impossible.

He tries not to worry about the future, keeping focused on the next game, the next practice, the next workout. The next time he can watch Ben fall asleep.

The future is going to be unkind. The thought of it sits like rotting fruit in the pit of Andrei’s belly. It’s why they haven’t told anyone, kept the match so close to their chests. No team would take Ben if they knew his Guide was staying behind.

“I can hear you thinking.”

“You cannot. Go back to sleep,” Andrei scolds as Ben rolls over to face him.

“What is it?”

Andrei traces the curve of his cheekbone and down along his jaw to his chin. “It’s nothing, Venya.”

Nothing to be talked about now, at least.

//

Andrei gets back from Russia a week before training camp opens and something isn’t right.

Ben can hear it gathering in his shoulder, something that shouldn’t be there. He falls asleep with his hand there instead of over Andrei’s heart and wakes up knowing it’s bad.

“You need to get it checked.”

“We have physicals at the end of the week. It’s nothing,” Andrei scoffs, stirring oatmeal at the stove. “I’m fine.”

“I can hear it,” he insists. “I’m worried.”

Andrei sets down his spoon, sighs. “I will go in tomorrow.”

“I can drive you in this afternoon.”

 

Agony and disappointment thicken the air of Andrei’s hospital room and Ben wants to cover his mouth against the taste of it.

Two to three months, the doctors said. Blood thinners and all that.

Andrei’s sleeping, surrounded by monitors and tubes and a sterile bandage covering the incisions. Ben tucks the scratchy hospital blanket up to his chest and settles in the armchair by his bed to wait.

This isn’t how this season is supposed to go.

//

“I told you!” Andrei shouts, rushing into the bathroom with his phone held up over his head. “I told you they would pick you!”

Ben, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth, grabs his phone and scrolls through the article with the Vezina nominations.

“It’s definitely going to be your year,” Andrei says, beaming with pride.

Ben shrugs, a little pink tinting his ears and cheeks. “I mean, Holts is gonna be the fron--.”

Andrei shushes him, not wanting to hear any word of it. “We’ll go out to dinner. For celebration. After the game tonight.”

“It’s only a nomina--.”

“Top three goalie in the whole league deserves a nice steak. I’m buying, so bring something nice to wear to the arena.”

“I always wear something nice.”

Andrei tuts. “You have a few things that could be in need of throwing away.”

“Like what!”

“I’m just saying,” Andrei placates. “It’s not going to be a t-shirt and jeans kind of dinner.”

Ben laughs. “I’m not throwing away my t-shirts.”

“Maybe I was talking about your jeans!”

“My ass looks amazing in those jeans.”

Andrei just flaps his hands and heads for the couch, sprawling out with a satisfied stretch. He’s so proud of Ben. He deserves the world. “If you wear something nice, we’ll get ice cream, too. From the gelato place.”

“ _The_ gelato place?” Ben asks, sticking his head over the back of the couch.

“Oh yes.” Andrei reaches up and thumbs away a bit of toothpaste. “Two scoops for you.”

“Always spoiling me.” Ben smiles and Andrei can see the fondness dripping from it. “C’mon. We’ve gotta be at the arena in thirty minutes.”

//

Ben doesn’t zone out this time.

He throws his crutches, yells loud enough to blot out the sound of the final horn, the roar of the crowd, and then he settles. He waits for his team to step off the ice and come down the tunnel with their heads down, sounding like disappointment and heartbreak.

Andrei is in the middle of the pack, mask tilted up so Ben can see the glassy sheen over his blue eyes, tilting their way toward grey. He wants to fall into them, lose himself entirely in Andrei’s arms. But he’s not the one that needs comforting. Andrei had done enough of that at the beginning of this series when the pain in his leg was fresh and new, the feeling of the straps on the stretcher they wheeled him off the ice on still rough across his wrists.

Andrei’s glove and blocker hit the wall of his stall with a sick thud. “Not good enough,” he mumbles.

Ben wants to rain praise down on him, wrap him up in all the loving and wonderful words he can think of to describe how unbelievable he is. How absolutely amazing he’s going to be. “Next year.”

Andrei’s brow furrows, jaw clenches, and Ben knows what he’s fighting not to say.

_This was our year._

There is only so long a team can stay together and when Ben looks around the room – to shoulders slumped in defeat and jaws tense with disappointment, sluffing off the sweaty remnants of the game – he knows they all won’t make it to the end of next season.

This was their year.

Andrei puts his hand on the bench next to Ben’s, the barest of skin brushing against his pinky. It pulls Ben from the edge. From getting lost in the sound of Cally unlacing his skates.

Sometimes his zones are quick.

“Don’t do that,” Andrei scolds quietly, tucking his own pinky over Ben’s. “I have to get rid of all this. Before I throw up.”

Ben nods and lets him strip down and rinse off, clear his own mind. Stretch.  

Andrei returns with his crutches and Ben rubs his thumb over a very obvious dent in one. “Let’s go home.”

 

The plane is dark and nearly silent, any little noise covered by the constant roar of the engines. Andrei fell asleep just after takeoff, his head pillowed on Ben’s shoulder.

Ben knows he’s been cataloging things: the rise of his chest, the curl of hair that falls over his forehead, the fan of his eyelashes against his cheek, the sound his lips make when they part on an exhale. The way Andrei’s hand fits around his.

He thinks that if Andrei was a Sentinel, he’d be able to hear the way his heart is breaking.

//

“Do you think Stammer’s going to stay?”

Ben’s fingers stop running through Andrei’s hair. “What?”

“It’s almost July first. Is he going to stay?”

“Yes. Without a doubt.”

Andrei turns in Ben’s lap so he can look up at him. “Have they asked you to stay?”

Ben licks his lips, traces the curve of Andrei’s ear. It tickles, makes him shiver. “No. They haven’t.”

The media has been swirling ever since the 31st team was made official and the expansion draft rules released. Andrei’s read them. He knows only one of them can be protected.

“My agent thinks I should sign a deal this summer.”

Ben’s throat bobs as he swallows, the corners of his mouth fighting not to turn down. “Do it.”

Andrei huffs and pushes away, getting up off the couch all together. “That’s it?”

“What?”

“You’re just going to tell me to do it? Just like that?”

“Andrei I don’t…what are you talking about?”

He wants to scream at him, already fighting the stupid tears welling up behind his eyes. Stupid, idiotic tears. “I sign a deal and that’s it! I know you see it! I sign a deal and you’re as good as gone!”

Ben stands, folds his arms over his chest. “That’s always how it was going to be.”

“No! No. We never talked about this.” He turns his back, wiping his face where Ben can’t see. “Expansion was out of our hands but this… _this_ would be my doing.”

Ben’s hand falls to his shoulder. “I could still stay the whole season. New contract or not.”

Andrei shrugs his hand away. “Or we could tell them and then you would stay forever.”

“Andrei.”

“I thought I would be okay with this,” he snaps. “But there is so little time left now and I’m scared.”

He can feel Ben step closer, a heat along his back. “You’re too good to be my backup. I have to move on so you can grow.”

“I’m not ready.” The honestly tastes sour in his mouth.

“Yes, you are.” Ben presses a kiss to the crown of his head. “Sign the contract.”

Andrei turns to face Ben, fold against his chest. “Are you scared?” he whispers to the cotton there.

“Nah,” he replies, wrapping arms around Andrei. “It’s just hockey.”

Andrei doesn’t have to be a fucking Sentinel to know he’s lying.

 

His agent congratulates him when they leave Mr. Yzerman’s office, a new three-year contract signed and sealed away. Andrei smiles because he’s happy to be wanted. He’s happy about the money and the chance to play hockey in the best league in the world.

He smiles because if he doesn’t, he would already be in tears.

//

They get until the end of February.

They get Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve and Christmas. Thanksgiving and Halloween. They get injuries upon injuries and losses upon losses. They get birthdays, both of them. They get nearly a whole season of falling asleep on planes and in hotel beds, waking up settled. Of never being an arm’s length away. Of hearing his name whispered from the other side of the ice.

Nearly a whole season.

They almost made it past the trade deadline. But that would have been too much to ask, Ben knows.

Andrei falls asleep first, eyes red and puffy and too tired to keep open. Ben fits his hand to Andrei’s chest, like he does every night, and doesn’t know how he’s going to survive without him.

 

They’re quiet in the car on the way to the airport, hands linked over the gearshift. Ben knows Los Angeles has palm trees but he gets unreasonably, suddenly sad about leaving the Floridian ones behind.

“Fuck.” He looks up at the sunroof in hopes of stopping his tears from falling.

Andrei keeps driving.

 

They sit in the car under the sign that says Delta until a security guard tries to make them do a lap or unload.

“C’mon,” Ben says. “Let’s just…”

“Okay.”

Andrei gets Ben’s bag out of the backseat and their hands brush as he passes it off. Ben steps up onto the curb and the height difference between them is thrown off.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says. “It’s not goodbye, right?”

“Just temporary,” Andrei agrees, the faintest of quivers lacing his words.

Ben hates the way airports smell.

“NO PARKING, KEEP MOVING,” the security guard shouts, blowing his whistle to keep people moving.

Andrei rushes into Ben’s arms, fitting himself on the very edge of the curb with him. Ben wants to look up to keep from crying but he doesn’t want the concrete overhhead of the airport to be the last thing he sees.  

Tears run down his cheeks and into Andrei’s hair.

“ _Venya_.”

“Get them to the playoffs,” he whispers. “Take them as far as you can.”

Andrei steps down off the curb and blinks to clear his eyes, break up the water building there. He reaches out and cups Ben’s elbow.

He exhales. “I’ll be back before you know it.” _As fast as I can_.

Andrei nods. “Be good.”

 

Ben doesn’t move from his spot on the curb until Andrei’s taillights drive away. And then he stands there a few minutes more, just in case he comes back.

//

One point.

If they had won just one more game. Lost one more game in overtime. If the fucking Leafs could have _lost just one more time_.

Andrei shakes his head against the bitterness of a thousand of ways the end could have gone differently and wishes, not for the first time, that Ben was here. But he’s in Anaheim on the bench, getting ready to watch his season end, too.

He drags his fingers through his hair, tugs on the ends. Everyone always thinks the Sentinel is the needy one but fuck, Andrei feels like he’s crumbling.

Someone sits next to him, close enough that their thighs are touching, and Andrei relaxes at his soft Russian. “We can go to Worlds,” Nikita says. “Don’t have to stop playing, yet.”

Andrei knows his country wants him. They’ve already been in contact, offering him a spot if they didn’t make the playoffs. “You’re going?”

“I’m too angry to stop playing. And I want to see Goose, I miss him.”

“I miss Ben.”

“Tell him to meet you in Paris.”

Andrei nudges Nikita’s knee with his own, knowing his touch has no effect on his senses. Knowing Nikita doesn’t need him to be grounded but feeling a little like he wishes he did. “Can you come watch a movie with me at home?”

“Only if it’s not a shitty romcom.”

 

Andrei falls asleep with Nikita’s feet in his lap before the end of the movie. He wakes to the buzz of his cell phone, the little screen lighting up with Ben’s face.

“Hello?”

“Andrei,” Ben says, sighing into the phone. “I wish you were here.”

Andrei lifts Nikita’s feet and places them gently on the couch once he’s gotten up, pacing quickly to his bedroom. “I wish I could be. How are you feeling?”

“I zoned out on the bench. I haven’t done that since midget. I…the trainer said it wasn’t long. But I-I couldn’t stop. The sounds of the skates, the ice is horrible in Anaheim.”

“Who pulled you back?” Andrei hopes Ben can’t hear the jealously in his voice.

“One of the d-men…Muzzin? It, uh, it took a minute. A while. He missed a shift pulling me back.”

Andrei’s heart aches. “Oh Venya, I’m so sorry. I should have been there.”

Ben’s quiet on the other end of the line. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this,” his whispers.

“Come to Paris,” he says, Nikita’s words rushing back to him. “I’m going to the World Championship and I want you there with me. Very, very much. Please.”

“I’ll take a plane anywhere you are,” Ben says, without hesitation. “Tell me when.”

The needy part of Andrei, the one that had been twitchy since the end of the game, settles. “As fast as you can.”

//

It’s the middle of the night in Paris when Ben gets a text from his agent that his rights have been traded to Dallas.

He’s relieved the uncertainty is gone. LA was never permanent, everyone knew that, but Dallas…

Dallas could be good.

“Still too far away,” Andrei complains, wrapping his arms back around Ben’s waist to pull him back to bed. “And so _green_.”

“It’s closer than Calgary. And green could be nice.”

“Don’t say things like that. It’s blue or nothing.”

Once Ben lays back down, Andrei wiggles his way under his chin. “It’s going to be hard to go back to Tampa, I think.”

“I’ll be right there,” Andrei says, eye closed and fingers tucked into the neck of Ben’s shirt. “Right across from you.”

Ben smiles and holds Andrei just a little bit tighter.

//

Andrei settles in front of his net and breathes the cold air of the arena into his lungs. He watches Ben do the same at the other end, tipping his green mask down.

It’s just a game.

“Good luck,” he whispers, knowing his voice cuts through the entire arena to Ben’s ears.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody said it was easy.


End file.
